15 new films this month gets 2018 off to a strong start. It’s equal to the 2017 average of 14.5, which bodes well for another good year.

It’s ahead of the January average (previously 11.2, now 11.5), though ranks joint third of all Januarys: it’s the same tally as last year, only slightly behind 2015’s 16, but 2016 retains the all-time best January with 20.

The Boss Baby was the first film I watched from 2017’s 50 Unseen. Did not expect that!

This month’s Blindspot film: on the rare occasion I watch a film from the nouvelle vague I always expect to find it irritating and pretentious, but there are some I’ve liked — Breathless, for example. Now joining that list is another of the movement’s best-known texts, François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.

Favourite Film of the Month
There were quite a few films I really liked this month (by the time the reviews are in, four will receive full marks), but when I sat down to consider this award there was a clear victor for me. I can’t quite believe it’s taken me this long to get round to it (I first noticed it when it was getting raves at festival screenings in the latter half of 2016), and I’m not sure which stage of backlash we’re on at this point (so I don’t know if I’m currently ‘meant’ to like it or not), but I loved La La Land.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
There was nothing I’d consider an outright stinker this month (yes, I enjoyed The Boss Baby and King Arthur), so it falls to what I consider the most disappointing, basically. I’m afraid that has to be The Man from Earth: Holocene. After spending so long waiting for it (I supported the Kickstarter campaign back in 2014), the end result didn’t live up to the original. Perhaps it never could have, but here we are.

Worst Title Translation from French of the Month
The French title of François Truffaut’s debut film, Les Quatre Cents Coups, does indeed literally translate into English as The 400 Blows, but that’s not really what it means. It’s a (slight) abbreviation of a French idiom, faire les quatre cents coups, which has a meaning equivalent to “to raise hell”. So in English, The 400 Blows sounds like a pretty meaningless title once you’ve seen the film; something like Raising Hell, on the other hand…

Worst Title Translation from Japanese of the Month
The fifth film in Japan’s long-running samurai series is called Zatôichi kenka-tabi in its original language, which translates as Zatoichi’s Fighting Journey. Suggests some action, doesn’t it? Instead, in English it’s known as Zatoichi on the Road, which is both less exciting and also thoroughly generic — it could be the title of pretty much any Zatoichi movie. (Not that Fighting Journey is that much more specific, to be honest.)

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
A clear victor this month (it had five times as many hits as the post in second place), and for the first time in a quarter of a year it’s actually a film review too: The Man from Earth: Holocene.

I didn’t bother to furnish my Rewatchathon with an introductory post this year because the concept remains fundamentally the same as 2017 (that intro is here). However, because reaching 52 felt like a bit of a scramble towards the end, I’ve lowered my sights ever so slightly to 50. It’s a rounder number anyhow.

That’s a bang-on-target start — a lot better than last year, when I only rewatched one film in January.

Believe it or not, Die Hard and Die Hard 2 are the only Die Hard movies I’ve ever seen. I’ve been meaning to get to Die Hard with a Vengeance for absolutely ages, but for a while have also been wanting to rewatch the first two first. Well, that’s done now, so hopefully #3 will follow soon. And then #4 and #5? Perhaps. I mean, I watched Die Hard 2 for the first time in 2008 and I’m only now watching With a Vengeance, so maybe I won’t see the fifth one until 2038…

In an emulation of last year, in 2018 I’m setting myself the goal of watching not only a dozen Blindspot films, but also a decad WDYMYHS movies. Last year there was a reason for this (marking my tenth blogiversary); this year, I’m doing it just because it worked before.

In another similarity to last year, my Blindspot list is a ‘free choice’ selected from films I either already own or have ready access to (i.e. they’re available on Netflix / Amazon Prime / etc), while my WDYMYHS list is chosen by mixing together lists of must-see movies to find those that consensus says I should’ve seen.

To select this year’s ten, I noted films from IMDb’s Top 250 (or whatever they want to call it nowadays) that I already owned or had ready access to, then saw which were also on They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s 1,000 Greatest Films. Then I narrowed that long-list to films that also helped complete a list on iCheckMovies. After ruling out Princess Mononoke under my old “no duplicate directors” rule (because I really wanted to include Nausicaä on my Blindspot list; and also because I’d already had a shot at Mononoke during 2015’s list), these were my final ten — listed here in whatever order they ended up ranked.

Das Boot

The Lives of Others

Full Metal Jacket

Stalker

Amadeus

Scarface

Ran

Casino

The Elephant Man

Rocky

Exciting observation: six of them are from the ’80s. No idea how or why that came about.

In an emulation of last year, in 2018 I’m setting myself the goal of watching not only a dozen Blindspot films, but also a decad WDYMYHS movies. Last year there was a reason for this (marking my tenth blogiversary); this year, I’m doing it just because it worked before.

In another similarity to last year, my Blindspot list is a ‘free choice’ selected from films I either already own or have ready access to (i.e. they’re available on Netflix / Amazon Prime / etc), while my WDYMYHS list is chosen by mixing together lists of must-see movies to find those that consensus says I should’ve seen.

Although this is a ‘free choice’ list, I did get a helping hand: I determined I wanted to include films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman, but how to choose which from their lengthy and acclaimed filmographies? So I turned to iCheckMovies to see which were on the most lists, had the most favourites, that kind of thing. That produced clear frontrunners for each director, and they’re the ones I went with.

Below are all 12 of my selections, in alphabetical order.

The 400 Blows

Attack the Block

Big Fish

Black Narcissus

The Hunt

Nausicaä of the
Valley of the Wind

Snowpiercer

Strangers on a Train

Suspiria

True Romance

The Wild Bunch

Wild Strawberries

Exciting observation: eight of them (aka two-thirds) are non-US productions. How cultured of me.

After that, a list of major new releases that I missed, thus explaining why they’re not in my best selection (i.e. because I haven’t see them).

But first, the less honourable list: the five worst films I saw in 2017.

The Five Worst Films I Saw For the First Time in 2017

In alphabetical order…

Into the Wild
Youthful Pretentiousness: The Movie. That it was written and directed by a 47-year-old, but seems to have gained none of the perspective maturity should afford, makes it even worse. It’s also a true story, and we should maybe feel sorry for the guy involved, but… well, he kind brought it all on himself, didn’t he?

London Has Fallen
You can just about enjoy this unwelcome sequel as a dumb actioner if you switch your brain off, but you really have to try to have a good time with it thanks to the cheap production values, rampant xenophobia, and furious American patriotism. If you still need putting off, consider this: I bet Trump loves this movie.

Space Jam
Last year Space Jam was recommended as one of the 50 “Must See Movies Before You Grow Up”. I disagree. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, and, even allowing for the limits of mid-’90s technology, it’s not very well made. It’s joyless and flat; a waste of time and effort. Also, one of this year’s two one-star films.

Vehicle 19
This is the other. It’s a low-budget thriller starring Paul “the one from Fast & Furious who died” Walker as a regular guy who gets in the wrong rental car and finds himself embroiled in a political conspiracy. It’s also all shot from within the car. That’s the kind of filmmaking conceit I enjoy, but Vehicle 19 provides nothing else entertaining to go with it.

Warcraft: The Beginning
Writer-director Duncan Jones, who showed such promise with Moon and Source Code, wasted several years of his career making this. Apparently he was keen to live up to what fans of the franchise expected, not just produce a generic fantasy movie with a brand name. Maybe for those guys he succeeded. For the rest of us, it’s… well, to be frank, it’s just crap.

The 17 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2017

This is the top 10% of my viewing from 2017. I saw 174 new films this year, which means this year’s “top 10” has 17 films. Should you think that’s excessive, just scroll on down and start reading wherever you please.

The zombie subgenre should be played out ten times over by now, but then you get something like this. As with the best zombie flicks, it’s more about the humans than the monsters. But also it’s about the intense and suspenseful action sequences.

This French-Danish animation delivers understated beauty in its deceptively simple visual style, and an equally subtle but strong feminist streak in its story of one girl’s mission to reach the North Pole.

If there’s any horror creature more played-out than zombies, it’s vampires. Unless you’ve got a new angle, of course, and this fly-on-the-wall ‘documentary’ about a gang of Kiwi vamps imbues its subject with hilarity and new, er, life. (Full review.)

2017 #5 The latest attempt to bring the giant ape to the big screen is a creature-feature B-movie writ large, emboldened with all the CGI modern Hollywood can afford. Despite the marvellously pulpy story, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts brings a surprising amount of class to the endeavour, with some gorgeous cinematography and strikingly staged sequences. This may be 2017’s most underrated blockbuster. (Full review.)

2017 #4 Christopher Nolan’s first non-sci-fi/fantasy movie for 15 years is ambitious in other ways, trying to condense a massive military operation into a single movie — with added the pressure of it being a story both not often told and of immense importance: it represented a massive turning point in the Second World War. He carries it off with bold filmmaking that focuses on the intensity of the experience for the men in the thick of it, which is where he places the viewer. It’s 90 minutes of non-stop ratcheting tension, with a bit of well-earned patriotic catharsis at the end. (Full review.)

The director of Once delivers another fable about people finding love through music. This time it’s about a gaggle of school kids, lending a coming-of-age universality and a kind of nostalgic melancholy — you don’t have to have been in a band, or grown up during the film’s 80s setting, to relate to the bittersweetness, the horrors and the wonders, of young love. (Full review.)

I watched It’s a Wonderful Life out of a sense of duty: it’s an iconic Christmas film, well rated on polls like the IMDb Top 250, but (obviously) I’d never seen it. I set out merely to rectify that, expecting to find something a bit saccharine and twee… but, blow me down, it’s not that at all: it’s a beautiful, brilliantly made, genuinely moving film. I even got something in my eye during the (inevitable) conclusion. My only regret is I didn’t watch it sooner.

2017 #3 I don’t think many people (if anyone) expected much when they rebooted Planet of the Apes back in 2011, but what’s followed is one of the great movie trilogies of our time. This concluding instalment could’ve lived up to its title and been an epic battle extravaganza, but that probably would’ve been a soulless disappointment. Instead, it remains focused on its characters — primarily Andy Serkis’ remarkable performance as the apes’ leader — to tell a tale that’s as much about internal battles as external ones. (Full review.)

Empire magazine picked this as their best film of 2016, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with them (even though, today, I’ve ranked another one higher). The story of a young delinquent bonding with his reluctant foster father, it features the kind of quirky comedy, but with heartfelt dramatic undertones, that you only tend to get from small countries and their indie movies. It manages a perfect tightrope walk that renders it both sidesplittingly hilarious and sweetly moving. (Full review.)

I watched Kubo and Wilderpeople back to back all the way back in January, and felt at the time they were dead certs for my top ten — and here they are, almost a full year later, side by side again in the very upper echelons of my list. I thought long and hard about that, dear reader, because I didn’t want to be placing them here on the autopilot of 12-month-old suspicions. Now, I’m sure I’m not. Kubo is a majestic adventure movie, with truly stunning stop-motion animation and a powerful story, that deserves to be recognised outside of the confines of “animation” or “kids’ movies”. (Full review.)

2017 #2 This is the third movie in my top ten driven by music (the others were Kubo and, of course, Sing Street) — which is neither here nor there, merely a connection I literally just noticed. In this instance “driven” is the operative word, because it’s about a brilliant young getaway driver who choreographs his escapes to music blaring from his iPod. Writer-director Edgar Wright extends that conceit outward into the entire movie, with almost every key sequence perfectly underscored by an eclectic soundtrack. The action is thrilling, the dialogue is snappy, and the whole concoction is pure movie-magic entertainment. (Full review.)

2017 #1 Talking of placing things on autopilot, here’s another I made sure to have a good think about. When I first thought, “I wonder what my #1 movie will be this year?”, my mind immediately fired back with, “Blade Runner 2049.” But I made sure to think it through, in ways I won’t bore you with, and I came fairly close to putting Baby Driver here, but in the end I settled on Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi sequel (meaning the Canadian director tops my list for the second year in a row). I’m not even sure where to begin praising or explaining why this film is my favourite of the year, there’s just so much about it that’s perfect: the numerous thought-provoking sci-fi concepts that are carefully explored; the endlessly gorgeous cinematography (if Roger Deakins doesn’t get that Oscar now…); the way it builds out of the first movie but doesn’t entirely rely on it (as Drew McWeeny put it in his top ten article, “Blade Runner 2049 stands as a work of science-fiction that is so packed with ideas and invention and character that the single least interesting thing about it is that it also happens to be connected to another movie”)… I could go on (but that’s what my full review is for). It’s an incredible piece of work that can stand proudly alongside the classic original — which is perhaps its greatest achievement.

Finally, a special shout-out to several of this year’s big superhero movies, which I enjoyed a lot but didn’t quite make it into my top 17: The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok. I liked most of the others too (even Justice League, as my review attests) but, unlike those four, they were never seriously in the running for my top 17.

I watched 36 movies from 2017 during 2017, including most of the big blockbusters, but that still leaves a considerable number of notable releases that I missed. As is my tradition, then, here’s an alphabetical list of 50 films that I’ve not seen and are listed as 2017 on IMDb (with a couple of exceptions for films that are really from 2017 but happened to screen at a festival or two in 2016). In many cases these ‘missed’ films are awards-y movies that aren’t actually out in the UK yet (there are “2017” movies scheduled through until at least July 2018).

The films in this list have been selected for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — some of these are films I have no intention of watching!

All the Money in the World
American Made
Battle of the Sexes
Baywatch
Beauty and the Beast
The Big Sick
The Boss Baby
Call Me by Your Name
Cars 3
Coco
The Dark Tower
Darkest Hour
The Death of Stalin
Despicable Me 3
The Disaster Artist
Downsizing
The Emoji Movie
Fast & Furious 8
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
The Florida Project
The Foreigner
Geostorm
The Greatest Showman
Happy Death Day
The Hitman’s Bodyguard
I, Tonya
It
It Comes at Night
Jigsaw
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Lady Bird
Lady Macbeth
The LEGO Ninjago Movie
Logan Lucky
The Lost City of Z
Molly’s Game
mother!
Okja
Phantom Thread
The Post
Power Rangers
The Shape of Water
The Snowman
Their Finest
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Transformers: The Last Knight
Victoria & Abdul
Wonder

…and many more.

And that’s 2017 all wrapped up. Well, apart from the fact I’ve got 54 reviews left to write. That’s the worst it’s ever been. I’ll be a while getting through them yet (even if I posted one a day from tomorrow, I’d still be going in March).

Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to you all. May 2018 bring you the viewing of many films — at least 100, amiright?

Yesterday I published the full list of my 2017 viewing. Well, I say “full” — I didn’t put my Rewatchathon viewing in there. I’m not going to include it in these stats either (mostly). Maybe I’ll do something differently about that at the end of 2018, but for now this all remains focused on my primary goal: watching at least 100 films every year that I’ve never seen before.

In today’s post we do the fun stuff: look at all sorts of statistics about that viewing. Hurrah!

In the end, I watched 174 new feature films in 2017. That’s my third highest final total, behind 2016’s 195 and 2015’s 200, though it’s quite far ahead of fourth place, 2014’s 136.

I also watched two extended or altered cuts of features I’d seen before. They’ll be included in all the stats that follow (except the running time one we’ll get to in a sec).

However, those 176 films are not the full story. As I mentioned in my introduction, this year I set myself a secondary goal — Rewatchathon — in which I aimed to make myself watch again at least 52 films I’d seen before. Obviously this took viewing time away from my main goal, and I became curious how 2017 would compare to previous years if those rewatches had been main list views. To keep things fair I had to go back and tot up my rewatches from previous years. Fortunately, I have complete records for that as far back as 2009 (I have a little over half of 2008, which suggests it was a good year, but not good enough to challenge the last couple). The number of films I rewatched fluctuated wildly at times (21 in 2013, 4 in 2014, 20 in 2015, etc), but unsurprisingly the biggest overall totals came in the years when 100 Films was also high. The only years that passed 200 were the last two: altogether I watched 206 films in 2016 and 223 in 2015. In 2017, I watched… 228. So, yes, this is officially my most film-filled year on record.

(An additional bit of stats business: in previous years there was the odd rewatch that I also reviewed, meaning it was included in the stats (it’s the “other reviews” bit in the graph above). My Rewatchathon is putting an end to that. I’ve reviewed some stuff from it but certainly not everything, so it would be a bit weird to just count the handful of films I did happen to review. I could count every single film I watched for the Rewatchathon, but that feels somehow against the point. It means my stats for previous years don’t compare with 100% accuracy to these, but I was always inconsistent on which rewatches I counted anyway.)

Additionally to all that, I also watched five short films. They don’t count in any stats… except the one they do, which we’ll get to in half a sec.

The total running time of the 174 new features was 316 hours and 43 minutes, which (as the graph shows) is in line with what you’d expect given the number of films. Add in the two alternate cuts and five shorts and the total running time of all films was 321 hours and 59 minutes.

This year’s most prolific viewing format was streaming for the third year in a row, but it suffered a bit of a drop: it accounted for 76 films, which was 43.2% of my viewing — down from 57% last year, and even below the 47% from the year before. Where did those percentage of views go? Well, a few different places. I’ll get onto those in a sec. Firstly: this year I bothered to count up which streaming services I used. It was all divided between the three main players on this side of the pond: Netflix, Amazon (including both Prime and rentals), and Now TV. Amazon accounted for precisely 50% (38 films), with Netflix on more-or-less 30% (23 films), and Now TV bringing up the rear on 20% (15 films). I’ve mostly used Netflix for series this year, mind, whereas I don’t think I’ve watched more than a couple of episodes of anything on Amazon (and Now TV do TV as a separate subscription).

Second place went to Blu-ray, with 46 films (26.1%) — up from last year, but otherwise my lowest since 2012. As I say every year: I own hundreds of the things, I need to watch them more. (It’s worse for DVD, mind, but we’ll come to that.)

There’s more of an ‘upset’ in third place, however: cinema! It’s been in last place for five of the last six years (the one exception, 2012, it was second-last), and it didn’t have a particular strong showing before that. Indeed, 2017 marks my greatest number of cinema trips in one year since this blog began, with 18 films (10.2%). In fact, that’s more than the last seven years combined. I intend for this to continue in 2018, but I don’t know if it’ll increase — it’s so much more cost effective to wait for films at home these days…

Next, there’s a small increase for downloads, with 14½ films (8.2%) — the half because I had to download City of God when my DVD copy crapped out halfway through. It’s overleaped television, which continues its slide from dominance (it was first from 2009 to 2012) with 13 films (7.4%).

Bringing up the rear is an even more ignominious faller: the humble once-beloved DVD, with 8½ films (4.8%) — actually a slight increase from last year! I mean, it’s up from 8 to 8½ and from 4% to 4.8%, but still…

In amongst all that, I watched 11 films in 3D (a mix of Blu-rays, downloads, a TV rental, and one in the cinema) and 1 in 4K. I have a feeling the latter will increase in 2018, but I’ve no idea by how much.

Which brings me to the HD vs. SD, to which I’ve added that meagre UHD offering this year. HD includes all but one stream, all of Blu-ray and cinema, all but one download, and just under a third of my TV viewings. In the SD camp there’s one streamer and one download (obv.), just over two-thirds of my TV viewing, and the handful of DVDs. The final result is 88.4% in HD, boosted by 0.6% in UHD. It’s slightly up on last year, but not a huge amount.

In terms of the films’ age, the most popular decade was the 2010s (same as since 2012) with 114 films (64.8%). That number’s down on last year, though the percentage went up (I watched about 20 fewer films overall, remember). In second, however, the 2000s saw real gains (albeit small ones), going from 18 up to 21 (11.9%). The only other decade to make double figures was the ’90s, holding steady on 15 (8.5%).

Below that, there were a smattering of films for every decade back to the ’20s: the ’80s clocked eight (4.6%), the ’70s reached seven (3.98%), the ’60s had four (2.3%), the ’50s only two (1.1%), the ’40s a slightly better three (1.7%), and the ’30s and the ’20s netted just one each (0.6%).

Last year, the percentage of films I watched in English dipped below 90% for the first time. This year it was back over it, though only at 90.1%. That’s 160 films wholly or partially in English. However, there were more others than recently: 32 languages were spoken in total (plus one silent film), up from 24 in the 2015 and 2016. Distant second was an uncommonly strong showing for Japanese in 15 films (8.5%), while everything else was in single figures. Of particular note is American Sign Language cropping up in three films, and Ancient Egyptian and Pawnee both putting in appearances for the second year in a row.

It’s the same story in countries of production, with the USA producing 138 films — 78.4%, up from last year’s 73.6%. Distant second was the UK with 42 films — that’s 23.9%, identical to last year. Again mirroring the language stats, Japan had an unusually strong showing with 14 films (7.95%), by far its best result (its previous high on record was six). Just behind were Canada and France on 13 (7.4%) each. Next was China, its nine representing a continuing increase, mostly co-productions as Hollywood continues its interests there, I’d wager. Concurrently, former co-production fave Germany is on the way down, with just six (almost half its figure from last year), which is tied with Australia.

Running down the list, there’s Hong Kong on five (after a big bump last year thanks to a load of Shaw Brothers films, this is back to normal), New Zealand on four, and three each for Denmark and Ireland. Five more countries had two apiece, and 12 countries contributed to a single film each. That’s a total of 29 countries represented, just one down from last year.

A total of 143 directors plus 13 directing partnerships appear on 2017’s main list. Of those, 18 had multiple credits. The man with the most was David Lynch on four — and that doesn’t even include Twin Peaks: The Return (or whatever we’re calling it nowadays). Behind him on three apiece we find Clint Eastwood and Keishi Ōtomo (the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy). Then there’s Taika Waititi, who directed two films himself plus one as co-director; and Michael Bay, who directed two films plus an alternate cut; and George Miller, who only has one main list film to his solo name, but was also behind an alternate cut and a quarter or another film. Keeping things simple with a pure two each there’s Mel Brooks, Paul Feig, Ron Howard, Duncan Jones, Shūsuke Kaneko, David Mackenzie, Penny Marshall, Tokuzô Tanaka, and Adam Wingard. Finally, Wes Anderson and David Leitch both helmed a main list feature and a short, while this blog’s most-featured director of all time, Steven Spielberg, had one new feature and a quarter of another. The rest took one each, although in the shorts we can find Luke Scott, son of Ridley, taking charge of two of the Blade Runner 2049 prequels.

For the past two years I’ve specifically charted the number of female directors whose work I’ve watched. There were just four female directors in 2017’s viewing, with five films between them, which is 2.84%. That’s better than last year, but worse than 2015 — and none of them are very good figures in any case.

On a brighter note (for me), 11 films from the main list currently appear on the IMDb Top 250 (or whatever it’s called nowadays). Their positions ranges from 21st (City of God) to 210th (Thor: Ragnarok). However, because that list is ever-changing, the number I have left to see has only gone down by seven, to 69.

At the end of my annual “top ten” post I always include a list of 50 notable films I missed from that year’s releases, and continue to track my progress at watching those ‘misses’. In 2017, I’ve seen at least one more movie from every year’s list. To rattle through them (including the overall total seen in brackets), this year I watched: one from 2007 (34); four from 2008 (24); three from 2009 (29); three from 2010 (30); one from 2011 (33); two from 2012 (32); one from 2013 (32); five from 2014 (41); and four from 2015 (32).

Finally, in the first year of watching 2016’s 50, I saw 30 of them. That’s the best ‘first year’ ever, just beating the 28 from 2015’s list that I watched during 2016.

In total, I’ve now seen 317 out of 500 of those ‘missed’ movies. That’s 63.4%, up from the 58.4% I’d got through by the end of last year. Basically, I’m watching them faster than I add them — which is a good thing. (As usual, this year’s new 50 will be listed in my next post.)

To finish off 2017’s statistics, then, it’s the climax of every review: the scores.

At the top end of the spectrum, I awarded 32 five-star ratings in 2017. That’s more than last year, even though I watched fewer films, meaning the percentage was well up — 18.2% vs. 2016’s 13.2%. It’s above my all-time five-star average too, which is 16.85%. Am I getting more generous or just picking better films? Such is always the debate. Maybe it’s the latter, though, because my four-star ratings dipped to 78 films — still second place, but at 44.3% it’s well down on last year and below the all-time average of 45.8%. Commensurately, the percentage of three-star ratings were above average: those 49 films equal 27.8%, over the all-time 26.4%. All that said, we’re not talking numbers that massively outside the norm here (as we’ll see shortly).

Rounding things out at the bottom end, there were 15 two-star films (8.5%), which is very much a normal amount, and a mere two one-star films (1.14%), which is also pretty normal (across ten years the average number is 2.1 a year).

And so all of that brings us the average score — the single figure that (arguably) asserts 2017’s quality compared to other years. The short version is 3.7, the same as the last two years, as well as 2007 and 2009. We have to add a few more decimal places to get a precise idea, however (if we don’t, seven out of eleven years score either 3.6 or 3.7). To three decimal places, 2017 scores 3.699. That’s 0.024 higher than 2016, meaning it takes fourth place on the all-time chart, sitting just 0.031 behind 2015 in third. These are tiny margins, as always — I guess that means my scoring is pretty consistent.

And that’s all your numbers and graphs done for another year! It’s OK, you can read them again if you want.

More quality assessments, with my lists of the best and worst films I saw last year.

2017 — the 11th year I’ve been doing this 100 films challenge, and the fifth consecutive year I’ve surpassed that goal. Below is the full list of new films I watched this year, all linked up to reviews and that. (“And that” being my “coming soon” page for the dozens of films I’ve not actually reviewed yet.)

My “Full List” post is an annual tradition round these parts, of course, but this year it undergoes its biggest change of format since 2012, when I switched from listing my viewing in chronological (aka numerical) order to listing it alphabetically, and also added the “as it happened” section. This time, however, it’s an even bigger change — the biggest change to this annual tradition ever, in fact.

I’ve got rid of the statistics.

“What, completely?” No, of course not — as regular readers will know, they’re the best part of the year! (They’re my personal highlight, anyway.) Now they’ll be in their own post. Frankly, I don’t know why I haven’t separated them off sooner. Tradition, mainly. Anyway, I think they belong there. Expect that post tomorrow.

In the meantime, there’s also a new addition to this post: TV reviews. As this was the first full year I’ve run my “Past Month on TV” column, and as there’s an ever-growing consensus to consider television on an equal footing with cinema as a narrative visual art form, and as that’s a position which I broadly agree with, it felt only right that I included my TV reviewing in this big ol’ list of reviews.

So, time to crack on with things. As this post is just a long list of words and pictures, if you don’t fancy the scroll (or the swipe, if you’re on one of them newfangled touchy-screens) here are some handy links to jump to whichever bit might interest you:

Television — an alphabetical list of every TV programme I reviewed in 2017.

Next Time — just in case you thought I was done with reflecting on last year.

Below is a graphical representation of my 2017 viewing, month by month. Each of the images links to the relevant monthly update, which contain a numbered list of everything I watched this year. This is also the only place where I’ve listed the 52 films of my Rewatchathon. There’s other exciting stuff in there too, like my monthly Arbie awards.

Across 16 ‘monthly’ columns I reviewed a significant amount of television this year, and so I thought I should include it in my wrap-up. But rather than just link to 16 posts each containing a grab-bag of programming, I thought it would be more useful to list every series I commented on and then link to the relevant post(s). That also shows up just how much TV I watch…

Last year I published a Top 5 of my most-read new posts in 2016, mainly to point out that I had no idea why the post that was #1 was #1. This year there’s no such oddness, but as I found it an interesting(-ish) exercise nonetheless, here we go again…

This year, all five of my most-read posts are from my TV review column. I don’t know if the TV-reviewing blogosphere is just less saturated than the film one (I’d wager not) or if the fact I combine multiple series in each post has a massive impact on their popularity (more likely), but they’re what get the biggest numbers for new content.

But this is a film blog (it’s in the title), so this year I’m doing two top fives: the genuine top 5 most-read new posts in 2017, which is also the top 5 most-read new TV-related posts, and then the top 5 most-read new film-related posts.

Without further ado:

The Top 5 Most-Read New Posts in 2017
(aka The Top 5 Most-Read New TV-Related Posts in 2017)

5) The Past Month on TV #21
including Game of Thrones season 7 episodes 2-5, Top of the Lake: China Girl, Twin Peaks season 3 episodes 11-14, Line of Duty series 3 episodes 4-6, Peaky Blinders series 2, The Bletchley Circle series 1 and 2, The Musketeers series 3 episodes 1-3, Sherlock’s pilot, and Wallander series 4 episodes 2-3.

4) The Past Month on TV #13
including A Series of Unfortunate Events season 1, Sherlock series 4, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, the Arrowverse crossover Invasion!, Elementary season 5 episodes 1-3, Outnumbered’s 2016 Christmas special, and the Vicious series finale.

3) The Past Fortnight on TV #22
including Marvel’s The Defenders season 1, Game of Thrones season 7 episodes 6-7, Twin Peaks season 3 episodes 15-16, Designated Survivor season 1, and Rick and Morty season 1 episode 1.

2) The Past Month on TV #16
including Doctor Who series 10 episode 1, Marvel’s Iron Fist season 1, The Flash / Supergirl crossover episode Duet, The Crown season 1, Line of Duty series 2, Twin Peaks season 2 episodes 1-9, 24: Legacy season 1 episodes 5-8, Broadchurch series 3 episodes 4-8, and Unforgotten series 1.

In 6th to 9th place were more TV posts. The following ranked 10th to =13th overall.

=4) iBoy / Thor: Ragnarok
Netflix original iBoy was released all the way back in January, so had 11 full months to rack up hits. Marvel’s latest adventure, Thor: Ragnarok, came out just over two months ago, but quickly surpassed iBoy… only for iBoy to close the gap again in a small last-minute resurgence, weirdly. They both have hundreds of hits too, so it’s a helluva coincidence they should wind up with exactly the same total.

3) Logan
The second (and last) superhero movie in this top five. Like everything in this list, my review was posted shortly after it hit cinemas — people love new releases.

2) Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan’s almost-arthouse WW2 IMAX-shot epic is, according to most, one of the best films of the year and a frontrunner in the imminent Oscars race. Whether that explains why it got so many hits back in July, I don’t know. It might explain why it got nearly ten times as many hits in December as it did in November, though.

1) Alien: Covenant
Ridley Scott’s second attempt at launching a new trilogy in the Alien universe met with a mixed reception across the board, but excelled in this category at least. It can’t’ve hurt that I posted my review a couple of days before it even came out in the US — if there’s one thing people love more than reviews of recent releases, it’s reviews of things that aren’t even out yet. It hasn’t experienced a recent increase in interest like Dunkirk either, with 70% of those hits acquired in the first two weeks after I posted it. It’s also already my fourth most-read film review of all time. Who’d’ve thunk it?

One final observation…

Looking back at my most-viewed posts in individual months, in 2015 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone came top in ten months and Chamber of Secrets in the other two. Then in 2016 Philosopher’s Stone was my most-viewed post every single month. But in 2017 it’s been top just four times. Fair play, that’s still far more than any other individual post (TV #15 and TV #22 are joint second with two apiece), but it’s gone from being unassailable to being regularly bested. There were even three months — a whole quarter of the year — when it didn’t make the top five.

The days of those two Harry Potter reviews accounting for an obscene proportion of visitors to this blog seem to be over… to be replaced by people looking for TV reviews. Funny old world.

11 new films this month sees me reach a final total of 174 for the year, my third highest ever behind 2015’s 200 and 2016’s 195.

But that main list total was undoubtedly decreased by putting effort into my Rewatchathon — what if I added the two totals together? Well, there’ll be more on that in my annual stats post later in the week…

Other than that, it’s a bit of an unremarkable monthly tally: it’s below the December average (previously 11.55, now 11.5), below the rolling average of the last 12 months (though it bests December 2016, so raises that from 14.42 to 14.5), and below the average for 2017 (previously 14.8, now finalised at 14.5).

Earlier this year, Empire magazine published their latest reader-voted 100 Greatest Movies list. Watching It’s a Wonderful Life means I have just 2½ to go: La La Land (yep, still not seen it), True Romance, and the film I can never remember if I saw as a kid or not, E.T.

This month’s Blindspot film: sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, which is still impressive in its own way but has inevitably been out-sci-fi-ed in the last six decades.

This month’s WDYMYHS film was more science fiction: Her, which is basically an episode of Black Mirror. A good one, though.

The 31st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I watched a few Christmas films this year, which makes a change, and one of those is also my favourite film of the month. As it’s a long-fêted classic I was a little sceptical about how good It’s a Wonderful Life could actually be. Turns out, it’s magnificent.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No real stinkers this month, but my least favourite was another Christmas film: Will Ferrell comedy Elf. It’s alright, but no classic.

Most Kick-Ass Women of the Month
Sure, Rey could get you good with a lightsaber, and whatever-Charlize-Theron’s-character-was-called-in-Atomic-Blonde could hand your arse to you in a single-take stairwell fight, but the women of Hidden Figures fought the patriarchy for real — and racism, too, while they were at it.

Favourite Porg of the Month

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
You might think the release of a new Star Wars film would walk this, but you’d be wrong: the victory goes to my monthly TV review, which this time covered The Punisher, Detectorists, The Good Place, and so on. It’s the sixth time a TV post has won this award in 2017 — that’s half the year, folks! (The Last Jedi was of course the most-viewed film review, and by a considerable margin: out of all posts it came 6th, with the next new film post at 32nd.)

I didn’t do my review advent calendar again this year, but by coincidence I did post exactly 25 new reviews.

It’s been about 25 years since I last watched Home Alone. It’s not a bad kids’ film, is it? I’d forgotten how little of it is actually the famous stuff with the burglary and the traps.

My full review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon from 2008 is linked above, which I mostly stand by (I found Lionel Atwill’s Moriarty less underpowered now), but it’s also worth noting that this time I watched a colourised version. I jotted a couple of thoughts about that in my Letterboxd diary here.

Speaking of which, there are also a couple of notes on my Force Awakens rewatch here.

Multiple helpings of Eastern action, French sci-fi, German horror, South American-themed Disney, a double-dose of Batman and, appropriately, a 3D trio all feature in my viewing for the penultimate month of 2017.

12 new films this month mean that November isn’t 2017’s worst (a dishonour retained by September’s 10), but it’s far from its best (it’s 9th out of 11).

That’s below the 2017 average (previously 15.1, now 14.8) and the rolling average for the last 12 months (previously 14.58, now 14.42). Oh well.

On the bright side, it beats my November average, in the process raising it from 8.44 to 8.8. That means it’s still one of three months with an all-time average below 10, but if I watch 11 films in November 2018 then that’ll change.

Also, further to what I was saying in July about dates on which I’ve never watched a film, November 4th is now also struck off the list. Hurrah!

Zatoichi the Fugitive is my second Zatoichi film this year. That means that since I started watching the 25-film series in 2013 I’ve averaged… 0.8 films a year. Oh dear. If I maintain that rate I won’t finish until 2044.

This month’s Blindspot film: supposedly the first true horror film and the most famous example of German expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. While it’s very atmospheric, I don’t think it entirely holds up.

No WDYMYHS film this month. There’s only one left though, so next month it is.

The 30th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
This month wasn’t an all-timer for quality — while I did enjoy most of the films I watched, very little jumps forward as a solid gold favourite. It comes down to a toss-up between two 2017 releases that each met with critical indifference but which I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy very much, especially with 3D really showing off their spectacle. On balance, I think the more interesting was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
In a mirror image to the above, there was nothing truly terrible. This category is considerably easier to decide on, though, because I was so thoroughly disappointed by Batman vs. Two-Face.

Most Underrated ’90s Film of the Month
Sure, not enough people talk about Awakenings (as I wrote in my review), but I was even more surprised to find that Candyman is a highly atmospheric horror movie that deserves to be better remembered.

Biggest Missed Obvious Solution of the Month
Considering they reshot almost all of his scenes anyway, they should’ve just had Superman be reborn with Henry Cavill’s silly moustache in Justice League. I mean, maybe it wouldn’t’ve been a good idea, but it’d’ve been a laugh.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For the fifth time this year, this award goes to the TV roundup. The headliner, and undoubtedly what attracted the most views, was Stranger Things 2. Also in the post was Peaky Blinders series three — another series that I know draws a lot of hits. It was further bolstered by covering Red Dwarf XII and an episode of Rick and Morty, plus Arrow, Bounty Hunters, Castle, Detectorists, The Flash, The Good Place, and Upstart Crow. (The highest new film review was Justice League at 9th.)

I hadn’t intended to embark on the Men in Black trilogy, particularly, but at a loss one night I settled on rewatching the first because why not? That led to the sequel, but not the third as yet. I’ve never seen it, so maybe next month.

I’ve written a list, I’m checking it twice — not of who’s been naughty or nice, but of films I intended to watch in 2017 and haven’t got round to yet. La La Land, Your Name, the new Beauty and the Beast… it goes on much longer than that. How many will I get through?

With 23 new feature films watched this month, October becomes the best month of 2017 so far, beating the 20 of March.

It smashes the October average (12.78), raising it over one whole film in the process (to 13.8). It’s not the highest October ever, but October 2015 is my highest-ever month, so, you know.

It also surpasses the average for 2017 to date (14.2; now 15.1) and the rolling average of the last 12 months (13.83; now 14.58).

Reaching #151 means 2017 is already my third best year. I’d have to reach #196 for second place, which I’m not on track to do. But come the end of the year I’ll factor in the Rewatchathon too, and that may say differently…

This month’s Blindspot film: it was Halloween, so I saved the film still advertised as “the scariest of all time” for October — William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. S’not that scary. S’good, though.

This month’s WDYMYHS film: with Duncan Jones’ new film coming to Netflix sometime this year, I finally got round to the movie that made his name (and his Twitter name in particular), Moon.

The 29th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There were a fair few films I enjoyed a lot this month — indeed, when I’m finally done reviewing them, there could be as many as nine five-star ratings handed out (that’d be 39% of this month’s films, well above my average of 16.7%). In most months that’d make this a very tough choice, but after only a little consideration it’s clear that the winner has to be Blade Runner 2049.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Conversely, there were a few clangers too — again, several I’d be happy to give this dishonour to. The most egregious of them all was Vehicle 19, a thriller whose high concept was right up my alley, but was so poorly realised that I’ll be giving it a very low score indeed.

Film I Most Often Forgot to Review This Month
I watched Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows partly so I could review it the day his Thor sequel hit UK cinemas… but I forgot. Then I discovered it was going to be on BBC Two last Sunday night… but that was only 55 minutes before it was due to start. I guess next I’ll aim to tie my review to Thor 3 coming out in the US… but I’ll probably forget.

Most Surprisingly Popular Review of the Month
My most-read post for the past two months in a row is The Past Fortnight on TV #22. Is that because of The Defenders? The Game of Thrones finale? The long-awaited return of Agent Cooper to Twin Peaks? Well, I’m sure they all helped, but my stats say the highest number of referrals from IMDb (far higher than anything else in that post) came from Designated Survivor. Who’d’ve thunk it?

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Reviews of new cinema releases almost always do well, and so two of them duked it out for the top spot this month: Blade Runner 2049, which sat clear for most of the month, and Thor: Ragnarok, which took a run at it in the last week. With 24 hours to go it was still a tight race: they were separated by fewer hits than Thor had typically been getting in a day. But in the end the Marvel movie didn’t get anywhere near that many yesterday, leaving Blade Runner 2049 this month’s victor.

I always thought that the next time I watched Blade Runner it would be to finally see the original theatrical version. That’ll have to wait for another day: because I was rewatching it the night before 2049, it seemed most appropriate to choose the ‘official’ final version.

I’ve got a long list of things to consider rewatching for this project, but that’s frequently going ignored in favour of where my whims take me. So, after randomly alighting on Wayne’s Worldlast month, I fancied carrying on through Mike Myers’ oeuvre, thus all three Austin Powers flicks are here (with my short Letterboxd comments on each linked to above). It’ll be Shrek next. (That was a joke, but, actually, it is something I’ve been planning to rewatch…)

Finally, film noir The Reckless Moment. I first watched it over a decade ago (and reviewed it here) and have been meaning to revisit it for a lot of that time because I thought I’d been unfair to it. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s got a lot of good stuff — the cast, the direction, the concept — but parts of it are rushed or underemphasised. Although it’s not all it could be, I feel like something will keep drawing me back to it. Not any time soon — that’s not in my nature — but someday. Maybe, ironically, some of the appeal lies in the imperfections.

As 2017 hurtles towards 2018, the big screen offers up a death on a train, a marmalade-loving bear, and a league of justice. Feel free to guess which is the only one of those I’m likely to bother going to the cinema for.